JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Northside Jacksonville Roses Discount Store is temporarily closed after weeks of complaints about a broken air conditioning system — raising concerns about conditions for both workers and shoppers in the community.
The property owner, Cardinal Lem Turner Plaza LLC, faced a city code compliance hearing Tuesday after the Municipal Code Compliance Division issued multiple citations related to the broken AC at the Lem Turner Road location.
Citations unpaid, AC still not fixed
As of the hearing, the citations issued by the city have not been paid, and the air conditioning inside the building has still not been fixed.
Northside resident Dana Maule was among those who raised the alarm weeks ago.
“For weeks, this store has been hot,” Maule said, recalling a visit where she questioned store staff directly. “Is the Air broken? Yeah, it’s broken. Who’s the manager, who owns the building?”
District 8 City Councilman Reggie Gaffney Jr. said the situation was already on the city’s radar.
“The property owner who leases the building to Roses will be going before the magistrate on July 21,” Gaffney said.
Community voices concern
Felicia Mitchell, with the Riverview Collective Community Organization, attended the hearing and spoke to the impact on the surrounding neighborhood.
“So I’m here because today we had our hearing for Roses,” Mitchell said. “Roses is a store located in the Riverview community. It’s now temporarily closed due to the AC not working. It’s not fair, you know, to the workers there that they have to work in that condition, let alone the residents have to shop in those conditions. So I’m just hoping that it can get resolved as quickly as possible so the Roses can get back up and running again, and our communities can enjoy, our residents can enjoy shopping there.”
A representative for Cardinal Lem Turner Plaza LLC said the store was closed voluntarily while a solution is sought, but acknowledged the timeline remains uncertain.
“They have closed the store until they found a resolution,” the representative said. “They are going to reorder the parts and have air conditioning fixed within ... we’ve been closed indefinitely. We never ignored the property; it’s just very expensive to repair.”
What comes next
The Municipal Code Compliance Division gave the property owner 30 days before another inspection.
During that time, the owner will need to show the court that progress has been made and that parts for the new air conditioning system have been ordered. Outstanding fines are also expected to be paid during that period.
Signs posted on the store’s doors indicate the location is “temporarily closed” and direct customers to alternative Roses locations around Jacksonville.
Questions remain about what happened to the store’s employees. News4JAX reached out to Roses to ask whether those workers have been placed at other locations — and we are still waiting to hear back.